Whicker: It's easy to ‘C' Getzlaf's leadership

ANAHEIM – Lots of flights, not much rest, and sometimes your tongue doesn't quite catch up to your brain.

On Wednesday morning, Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau was asked again about the blossoming of Ryan Getzlaf.

“He's the straw that stirs the stick,” Boudreau said.

A few hours later, it made perfect sense.

The Ducks' 3-2 overtime victory over the Red Wings in Game 5 had many touch-up artists, but one real architect. Getzlaf, captain in all senses now, was again a powerful tower.

This game was as corset-tight as the rest of them, and there were crisis points aplenty. The hour of need came late in the second period when Daniel Winnik boarded Dan Cleary and gave Detroit a 5-minute, all-you-can-eat power play — and the Red Wings already led, 2-1.

But the Ducks managed to hold the fort in front of Jonas Hiller, until Getzlaf was able to make a steal and draw a penalty on Brendan Smith.

Before the end of the period the Ducks were on the power play themselves. Gee, maybe they can take the man-advantage into reasonably fresh ice in the beginning of the third period.

The 2013 version of Getzlaf doesn't wait until tomorrow. He came deliberately down the middle, waited for the seas to part, and rammed the game-tying goal past Jimmy Howard.

“That was huge,” Francois Beauchemin said. “It was a tough period on us. We were back on our heels and we couldn't get much going. We can't play that way against that team.

“But when we did kill that penalty it was a big shift of momentum, and he (Getzlaf) has made those plays all year.”

The Ducks had avoided losing. They and the Red Wings played a third period that was tenser than a freeway chase. Both survived it and got into overtime.

Wasting no time, Getzlaf got the puck to Bryan Allen, who nearly won it right then. But Ben Lovejoy, who played brilliantly on the back line all night, held the puck and got inside, then found Nick Bonino, who got the game-winner 1:54 into the extra period.

“It was an incredible game, a lot of fun to be part of,” Kyle Palmieri said.

The whole series has been, and despite how crucial Game 5 is supposed to be, it's a long way from adjournment, with Game 6 in Detroit on Friday night.

“We hit three posts,” Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. “They were way better than we were in the first period, we were way better in the second, and then the third was even.”

The Ducks also got nothing out of a 22-second five-on-three, thanks to the nifty stick of Pavel Datsyuk, and couldn't generate much on the rest of that power play.

Still, they've been good about shrugging things off, and maybe that comes from Getzlaf, too. Here, they remembered there is something to be said for faceoffs, traffic and willingness to fire. They all came together with 2:20 left in the period, as David Steckel won the draw from Cory Emmerton, and got it back to Palmieri, who saw five guys in front of him, but not Howard. That is an invitation to shoot that Palmieri never needs, and he got it through the high-occupancy lane and tied it up, 1-1.

“I don't really know how it got through,” Palmieri said. “It's not like it was a set play or anything. I was thinking about getting it to Cam (Fowler) but I didn't want to put it out of the zone.”

Detroit was absolutely dominant early in the second, to the point that Boudreau had to call time just for resuscitation purposes. Mikael Samuelsson, 36 years old and injured all year, took care of a nicely placed rebound off Jonas Hiller and gave the Red Wings a 2-1 lead.

However, Hiller patched up some misplays, particularly on a giveaway by Beauchemin right to Datsyuk, and also stopped a breakaway by Damien Brunner.

“Jonas felt really bad about giving up that rebound,” Boudreau said. “I thought he did a great job the rest of the night.”

The time between regulation and overtime is usually filled with replenishment, not inspiration. But Palmieri said Getzlaf spoke up and told everyone to calm down — an art that Getzlaf later said he has just now mastered.

He has two chances to get the Ducks past Motown and into a possible second-round Hockeygeddon matchup with the Kings. He'll be grasping for every stick and straw he can find.